| Scoobes said: Well MP3s, H264/Xvid and eReaders have yet to destroy CDs, DVDs/Blu-Rays and books. I think physical forms will always exist even if its with diminished sales. |
Well, how much of a niche do they have to be driven into before physical media are considered 'destroyed?' I'm sure you're right that there will always be some market for physical media, after all some albums are still getting pressed onto LPs. But outside of that tiny LP niche, iTunes has already become the single largest music retailer in the US with 25% of the market. DD is roughly 1/3 of the US music market, so how long before downloading songs is mainstream and CDs are the new LP?
Digital distribution is all about finding the right model to incentivize the consumer. There are lots of advantages to be gained by both the consumer and the supplier, and also a lot of costs to be saved. Digital distributors have to be careful that they don't outweigh the advantages with new disadvantages like DRM restrictions, and that they deal the consumer into the cost savings rather than just trying to line their own pockets. For every successful model, there are ten failed DD models.
All the major hardware manufacturers already have successful digital distribution models. They just need to be able to mainstream the model and bring in full retail games. The two big problems are going to be getting storage cheap enough and avoiding breaking the model through restrictions or greed.
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